Dogs and wolves on the northern plains: A look from beyond the site in Alberta

Abstract

Indigenous communities on the Northern Great Plains of North America commonly kept dogs as domestic animals. Historical records and previous archaeological research indicate that many of these dogs were large-bodied animals. Both data sources also suggest that wolf-dog interbreeding was common and in part occurred as a means of producing large dogs for use in transport. However, nearly all previous studies of large canid remains on the Great Plains rely on traditional morphometrics, a method that can conflate shape differences with size differences due to isometry. Geometric morphometrics, a method that can factor out such scaling effects, is applied in this study to Late Holocene large canid remains from two non-archaeological locations on the plains of Alberta, Canada. Our results indicate the presence of both dogs and wolves, with many of the wolves experiencing extreme tooth wear and loss and having small body sizes. We argue that wolves on the plains were far more variable than presently recognized and that such smaller wolves are likely to be confused with early generation hybrid animals when studied with traditional morphometrics. Differences in wolf and dog reproductive biology and behaviour likely made wolf-dog introgression rare rather than common. The use of advanced methodologies such as geometric morphometrics is needed to more confidently identify ancient North American canid remains. However, such methodologies must rely upon comprehensive comparative datasets that account for past variability in regional canids. Traditional morphometrics will continue to have an important role in the study of North American canid remains due to the fragmentary nature of most archaeological specimens. Such methods will be most effectively used in combination with other methodologies.